Spontaneous Mutations from Terahertz Proton Tunneling

Abstract

Protons in the gap between base pairs of the double helix store the code of life by breaking the chiral symmetry that swaps the sense strand with its complementary partner. When these hydrogen bonds break during replication and transcription, pairs of protons switch sides restoring chiral symmetry and destroying genetic information. Using time-independent second-order perturbation theory, we show that the observed rate of such spontaneous mutations follows in the sudden approximation for bond breaking provided protons in bonds between bases tunnel across the gap with terahertz frequencies.